Friday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 25:1-13
The second chapter of the Eschatological Discourse consists of three long parables, all of which are familiar to us. They have the common theme of preparation for the final coming of the Lord, whenever that will be.
Today’s reading is the parable about the wise and foolish bridesmaids. The story likely reflects common wedding customs of the time. The bridesmaids who attend on the bride are waiting for the bridegroom to come. The time of his arrival is not known. Perhaps, at that time, it was his way of asserting his male authority from the very beginning of their marriage.
In the story there are 10 bridesmaids altogether. Of these we are told five were “wise” and the others were “foolish”. The “wise” young women all brought an extra supply of oil with them while the “foolish” ones only had their lamps. The lamps consisted of oil-soaked rags at the top of a pole and needed to have oil added every 15 minutes or so.
The bridegroom was long in coming. The implication is that he was taking much longer than expected. In fact, he was so long in coming that the bridesmaids all fell asleep. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, the call went up:
Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.
Immediately the young women got ready and trimmed their torches. The charred edges had to be cut away and the rags soaked in more oil. The foolish ones immediately realised they were running out of oil. They ask their companions to share some of their oil. These refused on the grounds that there was not enough to go round and none of them would have enough. The foolish ones were told to go off and buy some more for themselves.
However, while they were still away, the bridegroom arrived. Those who were ready went into the marriage celebration with him and the doors were shut. When the foolish bridesmaids finally arrived with their new supply of oil, they found the doors closed in their face. They cried out:
Lord, lord, open to us.
But the bridegroom answered:
Truly I tell you, I do not know you.
Again this is a parable warning us all to be ready when the Lord comes. In the early Church, he had at first been expected to come in the very lifetime of the early Christians. This belief is reflected in the First Letter to the Thessalonians (read during the weekdays of the Cycle 1 First Readings), which is the earliest writing of the New Testament.
But Jesus did not come and, by the time Matthew’s Gospel appeared, people were beginning to realise that his coming could be in a more distant future. It is in this context that today’s parable gives a warning. If the Lord was not going to come soon, then some people might begin to take things easy and become lax in their living of the gospel. Today’s passage suggests that that is not a very wise way of behaving.
The bridegroom may not have come when expected, but he did come. And, when he came, half of the group were not ready. In other places, Jesus has warned that the:
..day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Matt 24:36)
Because:
the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
(1 Thess 5: 2)
The only policy is constant readiness. If we are not ready and he does come, then we may find the doors closed and hear what are perhaps the most chilling words in the whole Gospel:
…I do not know you.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus says that, as the Shepherd, he knows his sheep and they know him. Not to be known by Jesus means to have broken our relationship with him through sinful and loveless behaviour. To be in that state when he comes is truly tragic. The choice is ours, as we have been given adequate warning.
While the Gospel is speaking about the final or eschatological coming of Jesus as King and Lord, it would be very complacent of us to think that there are no signs of its happening in the near future. That would put us in the same category as the foolish bridesmaids! While the final coming may still be far off, our own rendezvous with the Lord can be at any time. For all practical purposes, that is the time for which we must be prepared.
Our news media is full of reports of lives being cut short by accident, illness or violence. Any of us could be one of those victims, young and in perfect health with a whole life before us. But the Lord calls when he calls.
Will I have ‘oil in my lamp’? That is, what would I be able to show the Lord in terms of gospel-centred living? Maybe we think the “wise” young women in the story were selfish not to have shared their oil, but there are some things which we have to bring to the Lord on our own. We cannot borrow the good life that someone else has led. It has to be totally ours.
Clearly, the best way to prepare is not to think anxiously of the future, but to concentrate on the here and now. Let us learn to live totally in the present, to seek and find God there. If we can do that, then all the rest will take care of itself. And, whether the Groom arrives early or late, it will not matter. Because he has been constantly part of our everyday lives. And, apart from the insurance that it gives, is it not by far the best way to spend our days?
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Saturday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Today’s reading picks up from yesterday’s discussion about true wisdom in relation to the Cross of Christ and applies it to the Christian disciples of Corinth. As a clear example and proof of the power of Christ’s weakness, Paul cites the Corinthian Christians themselves. They are living proof that salvation does not depend on merely human resources. If they experience salvation, the credit must go completely to the Lord.
Most of the early Christian converts did not come from the class of intellectuals, from the politically influential or from aristocratic families. By the standards of the world, they were not considered among the more intellectually gifted. This only emphasises the power of Christ’s message which the powerful were not able to overturn—and still cannot overturn.
God has called not the wise and the rich and the powerful to build his Kingdom, but the poorly educated and the economically weak. He chose:
…what is foolish in the world to shame the wise…what is weak in the world to shame the strong…
Paul continues:
God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
This does two things: it proves that the deeper wisdom is in the Way of Christ, while, at the same time, what the Christians do achieve is the work of God in them and not something they can personally boast about. Paul says:
God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God…
To recognise that wisdom, we need the inspiration of God through his Spirit. These Christians, low down in the social scale, are the evidence of God’s power and greatness. God has become their wisdom, their virtue, their holiness and their freedom.
Later on, the might of kings and governments and ‘wise men’ will be thrown against them, but they will have a power within them that cannot be overcome. This has happened again and again, down to our own day. Within our own lifetime, regimes have tried to obliterate the Christian way, and they have failed.
The committed Christian is possessed of a vision of life that opponents do not understand. It is a vision based on the search for truth and love and justice as the only weapons of power. Equipped with such transcendent weapons which originate in God, they cannot but win out in the end.
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Saturday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 25:14-30
Today is our final weekday reading from Matthew’s Gospel and on Monday we will begin the reading of Luke’s Gospel. Today is also our last reading from the fifth and final Eschatological Discourse of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel.
There are two great passages left—the parable of the talents and the description of the last judgement—but we will only be taking the first of these. Both deal with the final judgment and, like the parable of the bridesmaids, are warnings on how we are to prepare.
The parable speaks of a wealthy man who, before he set off on a journey, entrusted his servants (slaves) with large sums of money. He gave them different amounts according to their ability. One received five talents, a second, two, and the third just one. A ‘talent’ was an enormous amount of money in the ancient world, so five talents was a veritable fortune. Originally, the term stood for a unit of weight, about 75 pounds or 30-something kilos. Later it became a unit of coinage, the value depending on the metal used. Actually, our current meaning of ‘talent’ comes from this parable.
The amount given out indicates the generosity of the master. But the money was not for their own personal enjoyment; it was meant to be used productively.
The first two servants both traded actively with the money they had been given and doubled their original capital. The third man, however, buried his money in the ground, as this was considered the most secure place in a pre-banking society.
When the master came back, the first two presented their accounts. Their master was very pleased and they were entrusted with even more responsibility. To each he said:
Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.
Then the third man came along with his one talent. He had not traded with it because he was afraid he would lose his money and said:
Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.
Ironically, he was the one who was given the least and from whom the least was expected. But even with that little responsibility he failed to produce. Perhaps he even expected to be praised for his prudence.
The master does not deny the charge of being a hard man, but he accuses the man of not having done even the least thing to increase his capital. He could have deposited or lent the money and got some interest. But he had absolutely nothing to show of his own.
The money is taken from him and given to the one who had five talents. Surprising? Unfair? Not really. This man had already shown he was a very good investment. And Jesus sums up:
For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
As mentioned above, the word ‘talent’, which in biblical times referred to a huge amount of money, now denotes a particular gift or ability with which a person is endowed. “He has a great talent for music; she has a great talent for design.” In that sense, we have all been endowed with talents in varying degrees or, to use a word which Paul prefers, charisms. In either case, they indicate some distinctive ability which is to a large extent innate or God-given.
Everyone of us has been endowed in some way. And, as in the parable, some are greatly endowed and others less so. All that is asked is that we make use of that gift or those gifts to the best of our ability, and not for ourselves alone (that is to bury them in the ground), but to build up the Kingdom and make a positive contribution to the community to which we belong.
At the end we will be asked, as the men in the parable were, “How did you use the gifts I gave you and how productive were they in furthering the growth of the Kingdom?”
Today then is a day for us to identify what those gifts actually are. It is possible that some people have never given it much thought. They see their Christian life in rather passive terms, just looking after themselves, living in conformity to the commandments of God and the Church, fulfilling their ‘religious duties’, making sure to die ‘in the state of grace’. But this, in effect, is to bury one’s talents.
Today’s Gospel makes it very clear that far more is expected of us. We are expected to make an active and positive contribution to the work of the Kingdom and to the Christian community as the Body of Christ. In practice, that means taking an active part in our Church, in our parish, and in making a contribution to the betterment of our society. So, it is very important for us to spend some time in reflecting on what are my unique ‘talents’ or gifts or abilities and then to ask how and to what end I am using them? The time to do that is today because, as we have been amply warned, we do not know when our Master is coming back to check his accounts with us.
The end of today’s passage indicates that if we do not move forward, or are not productive, then we go backwards. We cannot remain static or purely passive in God’s service. To do nothing is not a possible option. The more we give and share with others from the resources we have, the more we are personally enriched. On the other hand, to cling to our gifts and keep them just for ourselves is to become smaller in every way.
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Tuesday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3,14-17
In the First Letter to the Thessalonians (the earliest extant letter of Paul that we have), Paul seemed to be saying that the second and final coming of the Lord was imminent, although he was careful not to specify a particular time.
Apparently replying to further questions, Paul (or the actual author) in this second letter does not repeat all that was said in the first letter about what would happen to the living and the dead. What is being written here is supplementary to Paul’s oral teaching and the instructions contained in the earlier letter. All he is concerned with is to emphasise that the Lord’s final coming is not imminent, and that it cannot take place till certain specific signs have preceded it.
Although the Second Coming and its prelude is a major theme of this letter, Paul warns the Christians:
…not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.
In other words, they are not to be alarmed by predictions (false prophecies), rumours or spurious letters supposed to have come from Paul suggesting that the “day of the Lord” is already on them.
“Shaken in mind” translates a verb often used of a ship adrift from its moorings and suggests a lack of stability. Here it suggests a kind of panic at the supposed imminence of the Lord’s coming. The Christians are not to be deceived by such false alarms.
The expression “the day of the Lord” comes originally from the prophet Amos (5:18). In the Old Testament, it is a time when God will come and intervene with judgement and/or blessing. In the New Testament, the thought of judgement continues, but it is also the ‘day of redemption’, the ‘day of God’, or of Christ, and the ‘last day’, the ‘great day’ or simply ‘the day’. It is the climax of all things. There will be some preliminary signs, but the coming will be as unexpected as that of “a thief in the night”.
In the second and final part of the reading, the author reminds the Christians to focus on the gospel which has been preached to them and which has as its final purpose a sharing in the glory of Jesus Christ as Lord:
[Jesus] called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Our gospel” is the gospel preached by Paul, Silas and Timothy, that they themselves had received by faith. It is, of course, first of all God the Father’s because it originates from him, and Christ’s because it springs from his sacrificial death.
Let the Christians forget about worrying when this sharing in glory will actually take place, and concentrate on living out the “traditions”, i.e. the teachings which they had received from Paul and the other Apostles, either orally or in writing. This refers to what Paul taught them when he was in Thessalonica. Since he returned from there, what he had written to them includes, in the message of the Good News, the principles on which a Christian should lead his life.
Until the New Testament took its final form, essential Christian teaching was passed on in the ‘traditions’ (a word which comes from the Latin ‘to hand on’ or ‘hand over’), just as rabbinic law was, and it could be either oral or written. The four Gospels which we have now are basically built up from such written and oral ‘traditions’.
The passage ends with a lovely Pauline prayer, very similar to one in the same place in the first letter and which also includes the words “encourage” and “strengthen” (1 Thess 3:11-13). The prayer is for inner strength that will produce results in both action and speech. It is a prayer we could say often for each other and for all those we know and love (or especially for those we find it difficult to love):
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself
and God our Father, who loved us and through grace
gave us eternal comfort and good hope
comfort your hearts and strengthen them
in every good work and word.
At every age in the Church’s history, including our own, there are people who are convinced that the ‘end of the world is nigh’ and that Christ is coming in Judgement at any moment. Certain key periods, such as the end of a century or, even more, the end of a millennium, have produced a veritable rash of such warnings. So far, they have never proved accurate.
We would be better off listening to the advice of today’s letter and focusing our energies on living out the gospel each and every day in truth and love. This is the best possible preparation we can make for that time which will come “like a thief in the night”.
And, as has been said more than once in these reflections, a much more realistic end for us to consider is that of our own life than that of the universe or our planet. In either case, however, the recommended advice is the same: live the gospel day in and day out and the rest will take care of itself.
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Monday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 23:13-22
We continue with the attack of Jesus on the mentality of the scribes and Pharisees. Keep in mind (as we mentioned last Saturday) that first, we are dealing more with a state of mind than a blanket condemnation of a whole group of people, and second, that the words are mainly to be heard as providing reflection for our own Christian communities and the way we behave.
Today and for the next two days we read of the seven ‘Woes’ that Jesus hurls against corrupt religious leaders. We have seen already how the number seven is a favourite of Matthew.
The Seven Woes are:
- …you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. (v 13)
[and] …you devour widows’ houses…(v 14). (This verse is not included in some texts.) - …you cross sea and land to make a single convert…(v 15)
- …you, blind guides who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing…’ (vv 16-22)
- …you tithe mint, dill, and cumin…(vv 23-24)
- …you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate…(vv 25-26)
- …you are like whitewashed tombs…(vv 27-28)
- …you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous…(vv 29-32)
Today we read the first three Woes.
1. …you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven…(v 13) and (not included in some texts) …you devour widows’ houses…(v 14).
Jesus accuses the leaders of closing the entrance to the Kingdom, thus preventing others from going in and not going in themselves either. On the one hand, this can be a reference to their rejection of Jesus who was himself the embodiment of the Kingdom, was preaching the Kingdom and who, by his presence, had made the Kingdom accessible to all who came to him. On the other hand, it can also mean that they made the observance of the Law impossibly difficult by their complex interpretations of what was and was not allowed.
Whether we are parents, or teachers, or priests or religious, we can also by our behaviour both block people’s access to Jesus and be far from him ourselves.
Included here is verse 14, left out of some texts, where Jesus accuses the Pharisees of saying long prayers, but not hesitating to take money (for the Temple, of course) from widows, the poorest of the poor. Considering that widows were among the most destitute and insecure of people in Jewish society, this was exploitation of the most base kind. A comparison in our own day would be with the ways in which some “televangelists” were known to extract money from poor and gullible people who should be receiving rather than giving.
2. …you cross sea and land to make a single convert…(v 15)
While the religious leaders try to prevent people from approaching Jesus, they themselves zealously go to great lengths to make even a single convert, only to make that person even worse than themselves. They do this by corrupting them with false ideas of what true religion is. They fill them with ideas about ritual purification and thus create a false sense of security about what really brings about salvation. At this time, Jewish proselytisation was very active in the Greek and Roman world. Parallels can be found in our own days among Christian groups.
3. …you, blind guides who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing’…(vv 16-22)
Here Jesus’ attack is directed at the leaders’ greed and their corruption of religion for material gain. They persuade people to swear by the gold of the Temple and make them pay. People are told not to swear by the altar, but by the gift they have put there. Which is more holy, Jesus asks, the Temple or the gold which the Temple makes holy, the altar or the gift which the altar sanctifies? Again, in the name of holiness, the Pharisee-types are exploiting the poor.
Sadly, today we also see abuse of authority and power—whether in the Church, in government, in business or other arenas—leading to all kinds of greed and corruption which undermine the very fabric of societies. Positions of service are turned into instruments of personal gain, often at the expense of the weakest and the most needy. Countries which long ago should have become rich and prosperous and provided a high quality of life for their people are bankrupt, in every sense of the word, while a small elite live lives of shameless luxury.
The Church, too, can find itself over-concerned with matters of money at the expense of its pastoral mission. A diocese, a parish, a bishop or priest who is rich while living in a world of poverty and need is a major stumbling block to the hearing of the Gospel.
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Tuesday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Galatians 5:1-6
Paul continues to speak to the Galatians about freedom, a freedom they cannot find by submitting themselves again to the Mosaic Law:
For freedom Christ has set us free.
If only those words were emblazoned in huge letters in all of our churches! One finds either that people feel Christianity is restrictive of a ‘normal’ human life, or that it consists of living a restricted life for the sake of some future salvation.
By taking on again the requirements of the Law to which they are being urged by certain Judaising missionaries, the Galatians are, in Paul’s view, going backwards. They are giving up the freedom which came to them through the gospel of Jesus. This freedom is a freedom from a life based on a law of external observances, many of them clearly of human origin and not part of being a totally fulfilled person. It was this kind of legalistic mentality which was creeping back into Church life that made the Reformers emphasise the importance of faith in Christ as the basis of life:
Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
To make the Law the rule of one’s life is to undergo a kind of slavery. By trying to live up to the rigorous demands of the Law—which few, if any, people could observe in its totality—the Galatians were taking on a heavy burden, a real yoke, which could only fill them with feelings of inadequacy and guilt.
Jesus in the Gospel invites us to carry a very different yoke, a yoke which he will carry along with us (Matt 11:28-30). It is a yoke which is “easy” and whose “burden is light”. It is a yoke of total surrender to his Way of truth, integrity and love. Because of our many weaknesses, to follow such a way can at times mean the denial of our lower appetites, but the bearing of this yoke can only be beneficial in the long run. It brings us to where we really belong. And it brings true peace.
In particular, Paul tells the Galatians not to submit to the requirement of circumcision which, of itself, has nothing whatever to do with the following of Jesus. Moreover, anyone who accepts to be ritually circumcised, in practice is bound to the observance of the whole Law. The Law is a unit and one cannot pick and choose—it’s all or nothing. Consider circumcision as a kind of sacrament that expressed one’s total allegiance to the Law of the Old Testament (of course, it also has a similar meaning for other faiths, e.g. Islam).
Again, those who look for fulfilment and salvation in the keeping of the Law have in effect separated themselves from Christ. They have “fallen away from grace”. They have put themselves outside the scope of divine favour, because gaining God’s favour by external observance of the law and submitting in faith to love and service of Christ are mutually exclusive.
Those who follow the Law believe that, by keeping it perfectly, God ‘owes’ them salvation. Their model is the Pharisee in the Gospel who thanked God, that through his meticulous observance of the Law, he was not like others (Luke 18:9-14). He saw all his imagined virtue as emanating from him personally. God should be grateful to have people like him around. However, his contemptuous remarks about the tax collector behind him revealed that, while his external behaviour was without fault, he was far from that inner love and compassion that the following of Christ expects.
On the other hand, those who follow Jesus know that salvation comes as a “grace”, a freely-given gift which none of us can earn, but which is given to those who surrender totally into the hands of the Lord. Ideally, that surrender takes place all during our lives as Christians, but the extraordinary thing is that, even if it is not made until the 11th hour, that salvation is still given.
Of course, as we shall see in tomorrow’s reading, putting off the day of surrender is not a very smart thing to do, but the point is that the door is never closed until we close our eyes in death. God does not have an accountant’s ledger. He only looks at me in the here and now.
So it is through faith in Christ and surrender in loving trust (itself a gift!), that we live in the firm hope of finding ourselves right with God. It does not matter a whit whether one is circumcised or not. The Christian community that Paul was addressing consisted of both circumcised Jews and uncircumcised gentiles.
Paul, in a lovely expression, says:
…the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
Faith is much more than intellectual assent to certain truths or dogmas which we are told to accept as true. It involves the total and unconditional surrender in trust to Jesus as Lord and as the Way to Truth and Life.
When this faith is active and strong, it results quite spontaneously in a life lived in love for God and in care and compassion for all those around us. The only really free person is the one who, in all circumstances, is able to respond in love, compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation to all the people and situations of one‘s life.
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Monday of Week 29 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 12:13-21
We move on now in Luke to more immediate concerns of the Christian life. Today’s topic is about the perennial question of money, or rather, the love of money. A man in the crowd said to Jesus:
Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.
According to Mosaic Law, the general rule was that an elder son received double that of a younger son. If there was a dispute, it was usually settled by a rabbi, which is presumably why the man approached Jesus. It was the kind of problem in which Jesus was not remotely interested, and he refused to get involved. One wonders how interested Jesus is when we make novenas to win lotteries or when we ask God to help us get our hands on the wealth of a rich and elderly aunt!!
Jesus now takes the opportunity to make some general remarks “against all kinds of greed”. A man may be wealthy, he says, but his possessions do not guarantee him life. Life comes with freedom, peace and happiness. Money cannot buy these things.
There is no evidence that rich people enjoy more freedom, peace or happiness, although many of us are inclined to think they do and envy them. Their marriages do not last any longer. They do not bring up better children. They do not necessarily enjoy better health.
At this point Jesus speaks a telling parable. A farmer who is already rich has a bumper harvest. It is so big that he has to pull down his existing barns to build larger ones. When all that is done, he smugly says to himself: “My boy, you have blessings in reserve for years to come. Relax! Put your feet up. Eat heartily, drink well. Enjoy yourself.” But Jesus tells them, that very night:
God said to him [i.e. the farmer], ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you’.
What happens now to all his piled-up wealth? Yes, it is all left behind. “You can’t take it with you.” “How much did he leave?” was asked about a billionaire who died. “Every cent,” was the reply. When the farmer met his God, what had he brought with him? Little or nothing. When St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) died, how much do you think she brought? One feels she brought a great deal. And she certainly left behind a great deal to enrich the lives of many.
What is my attitude to money and wealth? If I were to die now, what could I bring with me to present to God? And what will I leave behind, apart from cash and possessions? All of us can be rich in God’s sight, and it does not require any money. Someone has said that the really rich are not those who have the most, but those whose needs are the least (see Luke 12:22-34, where Jesus spells out a recipe for a life free from anxiety—the life which he himself lived).
And what we need most is the ability to reach out in love, the love that builds and makes life better for others. Think of what good parents leave behind in children whose lives are dedicated to making this world a better place—or teachers who have helped young people to devote themselves to service of the community. What we need is to live in communities where people look after each other. That would be a situation where, because everyone gives, everyone gets.
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Monday of Week 29 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ephesians 2:1-10
We now enter the second chapter of the Letter in which Paul speaks of how the Gentiles together with the Jews have been called to share the gift of God’s love, showered on them with total generosity and not because of any merit on their part. Here Paul speaks about what God has done through Christ for both Jews (of which he himself is a representative) and Gentiles (who form the majority of his readers).
He begins by addressing the Gentiles (“you”), who in the past lived lives both morally and spiritually far from God:
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world…
This is a description of their past moral and spiritual condition, separated from the life of God. They were under the influence of the “ruler of the power of the air”. The air was believed to be the dwelling place of Satan and all the demons, and this implies they belonged to a higher world than this earth.
But he says, “all of us”, meaning Paul and all his fellow-Jews were not without fault either. They too lived “doing the will of flesh and senses”, ruled only by their own physical desires and their own ways of thinking. The Jews were as worthy of God’s punishment as the rest of the world. (One has only to read the prophets to see how severely they condemned the behaviour of their own people.)
However, “we” (now indicating all, both Jews and Gentiles), though dead through our sin, have experienced God’s mercy and compassion and are overwhelmed by the outpouring of God’s love:
…when we were dead through our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ…and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…
Paul expresses this truth more fully in his Letter to the Romans (see Rom 6:1-10).
Notice the past tense of “seated us with him”. Already in Christ we are enjoying the life that will never end and for which the death of the body is a mere transition. Treating the eschatological reality as already existing is a characteristic of Paul’s letters written from prison. This way of thinking is also to be found in John’s Gospel.
In the final paragraph, Paul emphasises how what God has done for us in Christ Jesus is a sign of the immense and forgiving love of God which is given to people everywhere as purely free gift. It is in no way earned by what we do:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…
The saving is the gift of God; the faith is the trusting surrender of openness to that love. Our standing with God is:
…not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
Access to this love comes through faith, the unconditional surrender in trust of our whole selves to our loving God. It is not by any meritorious acts of our own, as believed by those who base salvation on the meticulous observance of a law or a moral code—as if such observance bound God to hand out rewards for good behaviour.
On the contrary:
…we are what he has made us…
Everything that we have become, every good and beautiful thing we do is simply God at work in us and through us. We are:
…created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.
But our doing so depends entirely on our openness to his guidance and help.
Let us then today say our unconditional ‘Yes’ to Jesus in faith. Only in this way can the deepest longings of our hearts be realised.
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Wednesday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Galatians 5:18-25
In our final reading from Galatians today we have a magnificent passage where Paul once again touches on the Spirit-given freedom which is the characteristic of the true Christian.
He begins with a statement which we Catholics should have engraved on our hearts:
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
In the Letter to the Romans Paul had also said:
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.(Rom 8:14)
And just prior to these verses, he had said to the Galatians:
Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Gal 5:16)
By putting oneself under the Spirit, one is not under the bondage of trying to please God by minute observance of the law for salvation or sanctification.
The sign of the Spirit’s presence is love (agape). If we are genuinely filled with the Spirit of truth and love, then we really have no need of law. As we read in the First Letter of John:
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. (1 John 4:16)
And as St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) once said:
Where there is (agape) love, there is God.
St Augustine put it:
Love and do what you like.
If we were able to be truly loving, we could not commit sin, even though in certain circumstances we might violate the letter of a particular law. On the other hand, a person who meticulously carries out the smallest detail of a law may be a very unloving person, an intolerant bigot or a person full of hate.
In practice, of course, every institution or organisation needs some kinds of rules which help members to live according to the spirit of the group. Ignatius of Loyola realised this when he wrote his detailed Constitutions for the Society of Jesus. But the principle enunciated by Paul here must remain paramount. The rules are to help advance the spirit and goals of the group; any rule or any application of a rule that frustrates that spirit or goal is to be set aside.
Paul illustrates the difference between a life which is purely self-directed (lived according to the “flesh”) and one lived in the Spirit by describing two kinds of people. These are diametrically opposed to each other and mutually exclusive.
One kind consists of those who act in a spirit of total self-indulgence, those who do what they like whenever they feel like it. It is a description of the self-centred hedonistic, individualistic, person.
He gives a partial list of 15 kinds of behaviour:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.
These emerge from our lower instincts and are destructive both of others and oneself. Such lists of vices and virtues were common in the ancient world, and others can be found in the New Testament. This type of behaviour is clearly at odds with what one expects in a world where God’s way is paramount.
On the other hand, those who live in the Spirit of the Father and Christ behave in a very different way. The presence and power of the Spirit in such people results in very different characteristics. Paul says:
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
Christian character is produced by the Holy Spirit, not by the mere moral discipline of trying to live by following the laws. Paul makes it clear that justification by faith does not result in a law-less life. The indwelling Holy Spirit produces Christian virtues in the believer’s life. These are not just ‘virtues’ which I can acquire by constant practice. Much more they are the natural outcome of a life lived in close relationship with Jesus through his Spirit, and allowing the Way of Jesus to guide one’s life. It is not a question of self-discipline or self-control, but rather of having a vision of where the good life really is and following that path.
We might notice that Paul contrasts “works of the flesh” with the “fruit” (not ‘works’) of the Spirit. It is the Spirit, not the following of laws, which lead to such qualities in a person. And, as Paul points out, there is no law covering such characteristics. They are above and beyond any law and, when they are operative, the keeping of the law is more than adequately looked after.
The only way, then, to belong to Christ is by letting go of all—for us to:
…have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
The Spirit of Jesus directs such lives. As stated in the NIV Bible:
“Christian character is produced by the Holy Spirit, not by the mere moral discipline of trying to live by law.”
On the other hand, absence of law does not mean lawlessness or spiritual anarchy. On the contrary, our deepening relationship with Jesus, our prayerful reflection on his teaching and our acceptance of that teaching, points us firmly in the direction of truth, love and freedom.
The Letter to the Galatians, although it seems to be dealing with a very specific problem of a very specific group of people, in fact has a great deal of relevance for Christians of every age and every place. The lesson about the freedom of the Christian is of the greatest importance. It is very sad if we see our being Christian as a restricted form of being human, with limitations set as a condition for ‘salvation’ in a future existence. It is not a means of ‘numbing’ the lower classes to accepting an unjust existence as the price for a future happiness.
To the contrary, it is the person who is a world unto himself, with no thought of the needs of others, who becomes the slave of his own passions and fantasies. And when society is full of such people, then we see the kind of behaviour that Paul deplores in today’s passage. Paradoxically, it is the loving person, the one who lives for the genuine well-being of others, who becomes the most enriched. The best society is one where, when everyone gives, then everyone gets.
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Monday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 11:29-32
Jesus has just said (last Saturday’s reading):
Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it! (Luke 11:28)
Now, with large crowds pressing around him, he throws out a warning which indicates that not many are hearing the word in the sense of accepting and following it:
This generation is an evil generation…
Why? Jesus says this generation is evil because it keeps asking for a sign by which he can prove his credentials. Today he says the only sign they will be given is the “sign of Jonah”.
Jonah was a sign from God to the people of Nineveh, a pagan city which heard his message, repented and was reconciled to God. Jesus too comes on a mission from God (“as the Father has sent me”) and he will find a hearing—not from many of his own people, but from Gentiles.
So, Jesus says, the “queen of the south will rise in judgement” on the present generation for she, a gentile outsider, came from a long distance to listen to the wisdom of Solomon. But Jesus, who now faces this generation, is far greater than Solomon. The “queen of the south” is the queen of Sheba, whose visit to Solomon is recorded in the First Book of Kings (1 Kgs 10:1-10).
Similarly, the people of Nineveh, the great pagan and wicked city, will stand in judgement over the present generation because:
…they repented at the proclamation of Jonah…
And now:
…something greater than Jonah is here!
But they refuse to listen to him.
There is always a danger that we take our faith for granted. Worse, we may even feel we are in a superior and safer position than others not of our faith or denomination. The fact that we carry the name ‘Catholic’ is not enough. Baptism and the reception of the other sacraments is not by itself a guarantee of our salvation. What counts is that we hear, understand, accept and assimilate the word of Jesus and carry it out at every moment of our lives.
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